The Gold Medal

Chapter 2: And well there must have been a time, I beat you at Olympic Trials.

Chapter 2 - And well there must have been a time, I beat you at Olympic Trials.

“So this is your domain?” Louis joked as we pulled into my gymnastics arena. We weren’t aloud to practice at the actual Olympic arena just yet or else we would be given an unfair advantage to the other gymnasts, many of whom haven’t arrived in London yet. So we were practicing in my gymnastic club’s gymnasium until next week, when our first podium training would take place. Podium training was an official practice session before the actual Olympics, where we are given the chance to do our routines on the competition equipment in the competition arena. It let us get used to the equipment we were going to be competing on, as most gymnastic apparatuses were quite different.

“Well...thanks for giving me a lift, I guess I’ll see you all in a couple of hours then,” I grabbed my duffel bag from the space in front of me and opened the car door, slowly shutting it behind me.

I was about to walk off, I heard multiple doors shut behind me in harmony. I turned around and saw the five curious boys walking to my side, looking around at their surroundings like lost puppies.

“Can I help you...?” I asked, hesitating.

“You didn’t think we were going to leave you just like that?” Zayn said with a potent smile.

“I don’t know if you could watch, really,” I confessed. The truth was, I wasn’t that harsh about letting them watch me train. The real problem was Ronald. He was strict on letting visitors watch, especially ones who were not blood related. He was very secretive. To him, other coaches could be disguised as teenage boys and interrupt our private sessions. He was quite a crazy coach.

“Come on,” Louis said, nudging Harry’s arm slightly, “Harry here was the one who wanted to watch you.”

I watched as Harry looked down to the ground, embarrassed. I hadn’t noticed my pale cheeks arise with a fair shade of red.

“Plus we can’t go back to our hotel right away,” Niall added. “So we thought we’d hang out here a bit. Our girls won’t know we’re here for a change.”

“Your girls?” I choked. A sudden image of a drunk One Direction bringing home dozens of girls flashed through my mind.

“Fans,” Liam corrected. I relaxed. “We call them our girls because we love them so much.”

“Well...” I bit my lip. “I’ll go ask my coach. But no promises.” They followed me to the entrance of the club, where Ronald was finishing up his session with my Amelia Williams on the uneven bars, the downright bitch competitor herself. It’s not like I hated her, well I did, but it wasn’t completely my fault. Ever since I met her at the Olympic Trials, she had come off as a self absorbed bimbo who always tried to distract me, or somehow ruin the tranquility of our team. She was a team-person, although she was ranked second on the Olympic team. Even if I tried getting on her good side as team leader, she would always snap and throw harsh profanities at me, as well as our other three teammates. At least I knew that without the peace in our team, Great Britain would never win a team medal.

I was standing there, bewildered at her presence as she landed a perfect double layout dismount from the bars, a crazy smirk on her face as she noticed me. I growled slightly. Our competitive “friendship” was the thing that held us from clawing out each others faces. If Ronald found out about this, then we would both we dead.

“Go stretch out a bit, Fray!” Ronald yelled, jogging to his office, “I’ll be back in ten minutes for some warmup drills.” I watched as he disappeared into the secluded area of his room, hearing little foots coming closer to me. I turned my head and watched a very worked out Amelia strutting towards the boys and I in her bright pink leotard encrusted with sparkles. Her pale face face was encrusted with makeup. I absolutely loathed the very thought of wearing such heavy makeup during gymnastics, especially after sweating buckets. But this didn’t seem to be a problem for flawless Amelia Williams, who batted her fake eyelashes at the boys behind me. Her blonde hair was coming out in loose strands from her french braid, her eyes showing the fake kindness she held.